How RFID Helped Southern Events Reach 99% Order Accuracy

Southern Events team reviewing linens in the showroom – RFID case study by Ultimate Textile

Industry

Party Rental

Reduce order errors, labor time, and inventory blind spots with RFID

Southern Events manages thousands of rental linens weekly. As the company grew, efficiency and accuracy became harder to maintain — until they adopted RFID tracking.

RFID Results

By sewing RFID tags into every new linen from Ultimate Textile, Southern Events achieved 99% order accuracy, faster check-ins, improved inventory churn, and streamlined laundry tracking.

Key Product

Table Linens

southerneventsonline.com/

99%

Order Accuracy after RFID adoption

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DAYS TURNAROUND TIME REDUCED

Significant Labor and Cost Savings

“RFID has truly been a game-changer for us: it’s made our process faster, easier, and more accurate. Our team can handle more orders with fewer errors, and turnaround has improved significantly.

Jordan Bason

Linen & Inventory Processing Specialist, Southern Events Party Rental

Two team members at Southern Events reviewing linen samples in their Franklin, Tennessee showroom — longtime Ultimate Textile customer.

About Southern Events

Chip and Jill Cole founded Southern Events Party Rental Company to serve Williamson County’s growing community of families and businesses celebrating life’s milestones. What began in their garage has become one of Middle Tennessee’s most trusted rental partners — built on strong local relationships, dependable service, and genuine care for every customer.

As a longtime Ultimate Textile customer, Southern Events is now a 50-person team known for creativity, craftsmanship, and reliability. Jill leads design and client relations, drawing on her background in event planning, while Chip oversees logistics and operations with a focus on precision and efficiency.

Outside of work, the Coles enjoy boating, fishing, and time spent with their young sons and extended family.

The Challenge

Southern Events manages a high volume of rental linens every week.
Manual counting created three costly pain points:

Packing errors that risked under-shipping to customers.
Labor-intensive returns that slowed check-in.
Limited visibility into inventory moving through the laundry cycle.

Jordan Bason explained:

“We wanted a way to reduce mistakes and make our team’s job faster and easier. Manually counting linens repeatedly wasn’t sustainable as we grew.”

The Solution

To solve these challenges, Ultimate Textile introduced RFID-tagged linens as an optional service, helping Southern Events integrate tracking seamlessly into their existing workflow.

Outbound Orders
- RFID is used to double-check packing accuracy before shipment.
- Result: Eliminated under-shipments.
Returns
- Upon arrival, linens are scanned to automatically count and check them in.
- Result: Reduced manual counting and cut processing labor dramatically.
Laundry Process
- After washing, linens are scanned again to confirm cleaning and track progress.
- Result: Real-time visibility across the full linen lifecycle.

The Results

Since implementing RFID, Southern Events has achieved:

Near-perfect order accuracy, with remaining discrepancies traced mostly to client entry.
Faster check-ins and improved inventory churn across packing, returns, and laundry.
Smooth transition as legacy stock converts to RFID-tagged linens.
Reduced labor hours, with measurable time savings during check-in and sorting — and additional efficiencies expected as adoption expands.
Sustained improvement ahead, as Southern Events continues full RFID integration and projects further accuracy and efficiency gains through 2026 as RFID adoption expands across all linen categories.